The Election We Needed
The 1964 election was a lost opportunity in the history and conduct of American presidential campaigns. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Barry Goldwater, both presumed to be the nominees of their parties in the forthcoming 1964 election, discussed the idea of staging a series of debates modeled on the famous Lincoln Douglas debates held in 1858.
Unlike what presidential campaigns have become, these debates were to be substantive discussions of policy and honest representations of the records and stances of both candidates. Unfortunately, the tragedy of November of that year relegated the promise to the list of what might have been.
Although ostensibly part of the 1858 Illinois US Senate campaign, the Lincoln Douglas debates focused on the contentious issue over the expansion of slavery into new states as they were added. The debates drew widespread attention and thrust Abraham Lincoln, then a private citizen, into the national spotlight. There were seven debates each held in a different town throughout the State of Illinois.
The format, incredible by today’s standards, was for one candidate to address the crowd for one hour followed by the opposing candidate given ninety minutes with thirty minutes for rebuttal. The candidates alternated as to which would go first. The debates were followed by the latest technology of that time: telegraph and stenographic dispatches rushed by train to Chicago. The debates encapsulated the two opposing positions over which the Civil War was fought. In 1860 the two men would meet again as opposing candidates for president.
A century later, in 1960, the first ever presidential debates were held between Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John Kennedy, beginning with the first debate held on September 26 of that year at the studios of WBBM in Chicago.
There were four debates in total, three in person and a fourth virtual, each lasting just sixty minutes. Unlike the oration style employed by Lincoln and Douglas, these debates involved a panel of journalists posing questions with each candidate allowed only two and a half minutes to respond. This format of give and take was suited to the new age of television that would henceforth dominate national campaigns.
In an oral history recorded after President Kennedy’s death, Goldwater revealed discussions that he had with the former president about holding a series of debates building off the 1960 debates but informed by those of 1858. They agreed that the sessions should be without moderators, rather the two would have an open, serious discussion about national policy with each man free to pose questions to the other. The debates would have been held in various cities across the country. The two men had even discussed the possibility of flying to these events together on Air Force One.
The purpose of this format was twofold: to make certain that the campaign was focused on issues and policy and also to demonstrate that in a democracy there can, and should, be comity and mutual respect between political adversaries. The longer-term significance would have been to set a template for this type of respectful, substantive debate going forward. It would also be noteworthy in setting a precedent that incumbent presidents participate in such debates in the future.
It was not to be. President Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, had no desire to submit to debates with Senator Goldwater. Instead, the election of 1964 may best be remembered by the infamous “Daisy” commercial in which a young girl is killed in a nuclear explosion. A negative attack ad, rather than the hopeful promise of an election of the type that American democracy needs.
